The Piano Has Been Thinking

Title courtesy of Varric Tethras 

Snapped last night, which has become a “it happens to the best of us” of the hospitality industry. Nearly wound up in a fist fight over it, but objectively had the best outcome. I got my guitar back and didn’t get hurt, the other guy got to feel tough that I’d backed down and didn’t get hurt either. 

Didn’t get much sleep in the aftermath, adrenaline is fun like that, but the same scenario kept playing through my head. Thankfully, I’ve grown enough that I wasn’t playing through the previous scenario in alternate realities where I beat him up like a superhero, something else was on my mind. 2009, six years ago. I was dreadlocked and just getting my shit together in hospitality. Took the first night off in a good while for my friend’s Buck’s night, he was the first of my highschool friends to get married and we were all chuffed as can be for him. 

We were at Birdies’ nursing paint ball wounds marvelling at how difficult the toilet was to get to. I drifted off and watched the crowd, these were days where I would sit at bars and watch the bartenders wondering how I could get better, subconsciously noticing tables that needed clearing. A very British guy and his friend approached the nearby pool. One checked the fence, its gate was locked, one looked around and got that twitch of I’m going to do something. He stripped down to his briefs, jumped the fence and bombed in the pool, immediately coming up for air to see if anyone was watching. When eventually a security guard came the swimmer spread his arms to say and argued. 

What? 

I’m just trying to have a good time. 

Why do you have a pool if you don’t want people using it? 

He hadn’t come down with a towel and swimmers planning to swim and boldly stuck to his plan. Going for a swim was among the last things he wanted out of this. 

I’m going to break the rules. 

People will see me and I’ll be the cool guy who went for a swim. 

And anyone who tells me not to is the real asshole. 

People know what the rules are, and break them anyway. Not to be rebels or mavericks, because they’re cunts. This makes them impossible to fight and breaks something important in me. 

Collage boys with promising football careers know what consent is. 

People at the Reclaim Australia rallies know they’re descended from colonialism. 

One idiot knows what a locked pool gate means. 

Some do it because they just don’t care, others specifically because it’s the wrong thing to do. It’s the sign saying “don’t”. If I try to create a safe space, people will line up to make it dangerous. When I try to make geek culture inclusive, people will bar the gates.

Back in my home town for a few days. I have a bit of a history of pinching booze from the house here, especially my dad's scotch. Not the wholesome growing boy way, I always bought my own booze as a teenager, in the grown man with a problem sort of way. 

Just saw that there's a full bottle of Vodka on the kitchen table.

Tomorrow I will be 9 weeks sober.

"Adult model and performer Heather Joy passed away Thursday October 16, 2014 from pneumonia. She was 29."

I knew her as Dot Suicide since 2008. "Knew" is putting it richly, I followed her blogs and loved her photography. There was a candid, unforgiving honesty to all of her work. If it seems like I'm trying to sound too classy to have enjoyed her naked I'm not, but the internet is chock full of good looking girls. Heather Joy stayed on my radar through blogging about alcohol, addiction, eating disorders and anti-depressants. All with a humblingly brazen tone. I found out about her death last night. Writing about her now, months after her death, thinking about how her words helped me come to terms with addiction, makes me feel pretty full of shit. 

"[Alcoholism is] a tricky little disease that sneaks up on you. Then it's too late. You're already in its grip and renouncing its existence.

Step one: we've admitted our lives were out of control and are powerless over alcohol.

Simple as it might seem it is the most difficult thing to do. Your brain denounces this. There is nothing wrong, the fifth you consume a day with the ease of swallowing water isn't an issue to be addressed in the alcoholic mind. *it's not that bad* you will tell yourself while pouring said fifth into a water bottle. It must be with you at all times. There is no room for error. The motions of the day are mapped out by not you but ethanol. * I can't go to that establishment, they don't serve. No I can't make that, I'll be long gone, swimming in my own head by that time. * And it always gets darker."

-Dot Suicide, October 20, 2013

I remind myself to document the whole experience. Not just the parts where I get to congratulate myself.

I know booze is loaded with sugar, so I've basically let my sweet tooth run a bit wild. Speaking honestly I think I've averaged 3 or 4 tubs of Ben & Jerry's ice cream a week, not to mention piles of snickers, soft drink and chocolate milk. Screwy thing is, I think I've lost weight. I'll have to check next time I'm at the gym to be sure. I never really looked at drinking's effect on myself from that perspective. I'm at an age where I don't really care what my body looks like as long as it's healthy and functional. And I seem to be getting laid anyway and fit into size M t-shirts so I wasn't too bothered. 

It's now just concerning because of the amount of junk I've consumed over the last month, coupled with the oversleeping that comes with depression. I should probably be a bloated whale by now, just makes me think how much sugar I was guzzling in every bottle of bourbon. 

"Yeah, fuck that white boy up!"

I was fighting Night Wolf.